The Top 3 Things A Recruitment Chatbot Should Do

The Top 3 Things A Recruitment Chatbot Should Do

Let’s get it straight, automating tasks with a chatbot or any other form of tech that your audience doesn’t care about…

…will flop.

-> When a job seeker is looking for a job, they want to find a job and apply.

-> When a person isn’t actively looking, they are open to the right type of job and can be encouraged to apply.

-> When a person isn’t looking to change career, they are open to content that can; make them better at their job, accelerate their career, improve their knowledge on hot/new industry topics etc.

I consider candidate experience first in every tech decision I make and always have. The top three things a Recruitment Chatbot should do are:

1. Allow the candidate to interact with their preferred platform

For some reason, we have always insisted on driving candidates towards clunky and horrible user experiences…THE ATS.

Why do we do this, I suppose it is so that recruiters can collect all the applications in one place, and this is the first mistake. Recruiters care more about their experience than the candidates.

Thanks to technology, now we can make both recruiters and candidates happy. A chatbot allows candidates to do everything from searching for jobs to applying whilst recruiters receive the CV’s on their ATS.

2. Facilitate an ongoing great experience

There has always been a gaping black hole that has irritated candidates, the post application silence. Every time you drop a candidate into a black hole they lose a small amount of respect for your recruiters and your brand as an employer.

A chatbot should be able to continue the communication with candidate post application. This can take a number of different approaches:

1 – Video – Candidates love videos, as long as it is genuine. Something as simple as the function manager walking through the office talking about what to expect from a role at the company. (Check out our partnership with JobViddy)

2 – Employee stories – Work with your communications team and create a number of stories about people who have successfully developed their career and then offer tips on how to achieve a great career in your business.

3 – Office tour – Remeber that feeling of trepidation on interview day. Why not record an intro and walkthrough of your office to set your interviewees at ease the day before the interview.

3. Plug seamlessly into your recruitment systems

Gone are the days when you used multiple standalone systems or relied on reports from your vendors. A great example of this is, in the past, we relied on reports from job boards. These job boards provided some pretty staggering reports around the number of views and applications. Then recruiters learned how to track and take control of their own data. Suddenly we could see exactly how many applications had been made, how many were shortlisted and how many were hired. In a previous role, this led to us axing the two top niche job boards in our industry as they were providing lots of applications but almost none of them were suitable.

So when considering selecting a recruitment tech, ask the vendor “how does your solution improve the candidate’s experience?”

Then put yourself in the candidate’s shoes and ask “so what”. If the answer to this question could prompt another “so what” then the candidate won’t care.